Lift Held Up To Test Escape Trick

Waikato Independent, Volume XLV, Issue 6232, 29 April 1949, Page 2

Lift Held Up To Test Escape Trick

The efforts of a screen writer and a director to test the workability of a situation they had created for Paramount's suspense thriller, "The Big Clock", which is screening at the Tudor Theatre this week-end, tied up elevator traffic in the studio's writers* building—and nearly drove a maintenance man crazy. The script problem involved star Bay Milland's escape from a gunman by stalling an automatic lift between floors after he had made his own exit. With considerable ingenuity, the writer and director ox' the film devised a way for Milland to open the elevator door with a knife, then keep it propped open with a coin. To test its practicality, they gave the trick a work-out in the writers' building. Besides stalling a load of passengers between floors, the trick also had an elevator mechanic completely stymied when he answered distress signals. Anyway, the trick worked, and went into the script.